Ruha and the captain to the first pair of spare mounts.
The Lady Constable held out the reins of the first horse. "You can ride, can't you. Witch?"
"Yes, I think so."
Ruha's reply was unduly modest, for she had grown up riding camels. Compared to those cantankerous brutes, even the most spirited stallion was child's play. She took the reins, gathered up her aba, and slipped her foot into the stirrup. Her only awkward moment came when she had to swing her injured leg over the saddle and did not
quite succeed. A fiery ache shot through her entire body.
In the tongue of her father, she cursed all fish and wished them a frigid death in seas as cold as ice.
Once Vaerana saw that Ruha could handle her own mount, she passed the reins of the second to Fowler.
"How about you, Captain? Can you ride?"
"If I can handle a ship's helm, I can steer a dumb ani- mal."
The captain picked Godfrey's sword up off the pier, then clumsily thrust his large foot into a stirrup and hoisted himself into the saddle. By the time Fowler's sailors were ready to ride, the Black Caps on shore had broken through the hail of crossbow bolts. They were advancing through the streets toward the end of the quay, where dozens of armored horsemen, all dressed in a similar manner to Vaerana and her companions, were beginning to assemble.
"I thought the Cult controlled Pros!" Fowler com- mented. "How'd you get so many of Elversult's Maces into town?"
"The shark bounty; the fishing captains are desperate for crews," Vaerana explained. "We snuck in a few at a time, pretending we wanted work."
Vaerana stood in her stirrups and twisted around to look at the quay behind her, where Fowler's crew sat two to a horse. The amputees were seated before the two strongest men and tied into their saddles with leather straps. They looked rather frightened and weak, but they had heard what would befall them in the Cult's hands and made no protest.
"Listen up, sailors!" Vaerana said. "Your horses know more about this than you do, so don't start thinking you're smarter than they are. If you get in trouble, just drop the reins and hold on to your saddles."
Arvold immediately released his reins. Though Tombor had already positioned himself at the back of the group,
Ruha moved her own horse out of line and deftly backed him to the rear of the line. If the sailmender had trouble,
she did not want to miss the chance to repay the debt she owed him.
Once the witch had changed positions, Vaerana pulled her mace and set the spurs to her mount. Pierstar's horse reared, then bolted after the Lady Constable, and in the next instant the entire line was thundering down the dock.
When Vaerana neared the shore, she gave a loud whoop. The entire company of horsemen began to move, some blocking the alleys and others spurring their mounts straight down the village's largest lane.
Ruha's mount left the quay. She saw several enemy arrows streak through the air ahead of her; then she passed across the waterfront and followed the rest of the column into a warren of narrow streets. As the company passed, the warriors blocking the side streets fell in at the rear of the charge, and the witch soon found herself caught in the midst of a herd of snorting, pounding horseflesh.
The company galloped inland past a dozen ramshackle inns, then came to an intersection and turned westward.
One of Fowler's men panicked and jerked his mount's reins, demolishing a shanty when the startled horse lost its footing and crashed through the hut's weather-beaten walls. Ruha saw one ofVaerana's Maces guiding his own mount into the debris to help the tumbling sailor, then she was around the corner and thundering down the muddy lane. A hundred yards ahead, the road passed through the gateway of a timber stockade, then curved around a grassy hill and disappeared from sight. A pair of Black Caps were trying to push the rough-hewn gates closed, but a flurry of crossbow bolts suddenly sprang from the front of the column to cut them down.
That was when a shower of flaming hail filled the air, followed by a flurry of arrows that caught the company in a deadly cross fire from both sides of the lane. Several men cried out, nearly falling from their saddles as fiery pellets pierced their legs and shoulders and even their
chain-mailed torsos. Panicked, ringing whinnies echoed off the weatherworn huts as tufts of black fletching sud- denly sprouted in the flanks and withers of galloping horses, and one of the beasts fell.
The rider went rolling head over heels down the street, coming to a rest before an alley too narrow to be called a lane. It was simply a space between two shanties. From this crevice shot a glimmering net of golden light, which quickly settled over the stunned horseman before he could recover his wits and rise.
Ruha yanked on her reins, nearly knocking Tombor from his horse as she crossed in front him. She guided her mount toward the lane, kicking its belly to urge it onward. The beast realized instantly what she wanted.
The witch barely had time to raise herself in her stirrups before it leapt over the fallen warrior and entered the cranny, its flanks brushing the wood on both sides of the lane.
As Ruha expected, she found herself barreling down upon an astonished wizard who, lacking the time to cast a spell, turned to hurl himself to the ground. The witch spurred her mount forward. The horse caught the sor- cerer square in the back with both front hooves, snapping the man's spine with a sickening crack.
"I love horses!" Ruha cried, reining the beast to a stop.
"You are so much more cooperative than camels!"
The witch looked over her shoulder to see Vaerana's grim-jawed comrade, Pierstar, staring down the alley as the fallen wizard's net dissolved around him. The witch backed her mount down the lane toward the dazed war- rior.
"Stand up, Pierstar!" she ordered.
The astonished warrior tossed off the remnants of the net and lurched to his feet, stuttering his astonished thanks. Ruha emerged from the alley to find a crescent of horsemen arrayed around her, firing their crossbows into the huts from which the shower of Black Cap arrows had erupted.
"That was a damned thoughtless thing to do!" snarled
Vaerana Hawklyn, pulling Pierstar onto her own horse.
"We go to all this trouble to fetch you, and what do you do? Put yourself at risk!"
With that, Vaerana jerked her horse toward the gate.
Pierstar glanced over his shoulders and shrugged in apology. Ruha was so astonished that she could only stare after the Lady Constable.
"Go on, Witch." Tombor pointed his mace through the gateway. "And don't mind Vaerana's sharp tongue. She's just worried about Yanseldara."
"Who?"
"You'll find out soon enough." The cleric spurred his horse after Vaerana, waving at the witch to follow. "She's the reason you're here."
Ruha urged her horse after Tombor. A steady clatter of crossbows sounded behind her as, one after the other, the warriors fired their weapons, then turned to follow the rest of the company through the gate.